I’d dreamed too many dreams about London.
The summer after fourth grade, I lay on a bamboo mat on the balcony and finished a set of books borrowed from a neighbor’s child. From then on, I was obsessed with a strange little alley and a boy with round glasses.
A little later, because of a French old man, I somehow fell for a North London football club, and red and white became the colors of my dreams.
One day last year, at the library in VivoCity, I happened to come across a small booklet on London architecture. For an entire afternoon, I traveled through time and retraced this city’s 2,000-year-long dream.
So you can imagine that moment when the plane touched down at Gatwick Airport: a dream stepping into reality.
The night before, I left home and flew into the vast darkness of the sky. Looking down at the scattered lights beneath the wing, I thought of the parents I had just said goodbye to, and a line of poetry flashed through my mind: “Between heaven and earth, life is like a traveler on a distant journey.”
The sun-kissed girl sitting next to me was also a traveler on a long journey. We started chatting, and it turned out she had just finished six months of travel in Southeast Asia and was heading home that day. I told her, your journey’s end is the beginning of mine. She got so excited that she gave me a light hug and wished me good luck in London and on the road.
After landing, I embraced one of London’s rare glorious sunny days, and my phone buzzed with a message from a friend: “The weather is great today, enjoy London!”
My first stop was, of course, the British Museum. Walking through Russell Square and seeing locals sitting in the bright summer sun—or simply sprawled lazily across the grass—felt like one of life’s small, perfect pleasures.
I used to dream of renting a small place near the British Museum and staying there for a while. I’d spend a few days reading history books, then run to the museum to see the related galleries, then go back and read for a few more days, over and over again.
Because the British Museum itself is like a flowing history book, opened across both time and space.
This time, though, I couldn’t afford that kind of luxury. I only had a few short hours to gently push open one door, after first spending an hour in line. A steady stream of visitors wrapped neatly around the museum walls. After all, compared with the Louvre’s €22 admission and the Met’s $30, the British Museum—free since it first opened in 1759—really does feel generous.
I did my homework before the trip and picked out the 30 artifacts I most wanted to see, but I still underestimated the pull of history. Inside the museum, it felt as if there were some invisible magnetic field drawing you back through the crowd to stand in front of the same object again and again.
Now, when I think back with my eyes closed, the 7,000-year jade corridor in the China gallery was elegant beyond words. Each polished, exquisite piece of jade linked together into the lyrical story of Eastern jade culture. I believe anyone who walks out of that mysterious passage feels the same way.
The Assyrian, Greek, and Egyptian galleries felt even more overwhelming, as though they meant to hold the entire history of civilization.
The lion hunt reliefs of Ashurbanipal, the statues of Ramesses, the Parthenon sculptures, and even more mummies than in the Cairo museum—civilizations that had each shone in their own time continued to collide silently in modern London.
And then there were Shiva as Lord of the Dance, the Aztec double-headed serpent, Tang tri-color pottery figurines, and the moai from a Pacific island. The artisans who made them could never have imagined their works would one day meet in a place they had never even heard of.
That moai in particular—“the lost friend.” When I saw it, I never imagined that just a few months later I would have the chance to visit its homeland, to stand in the very corner it left 150 years ago.
Today, the calls for the British Museum to return artifacts have grown louder. Take that jade ewer that escaped, for example; the people of Easter Island have also long asked for this moai to come home.
From the perspective of people and culture, I really do hope these artifacts can return to the places where they were born. Even if it’s not a triumphant homecoming, at the very least it would be a spiritual return. But from a visitor’s perspective, I also hope there can still be a world-class museum like this one to contain, protect, and present such rich and varied human history.
After all, only 160,000 visitors make it to Easter Island each year, while more than 6 million visit the British Museum.
But it’s said that the British Museum holds as many as 8 million objects, and less than 1% are on display at any given time. If so many pieces remain out of sight year after year, then why not let some of the less top-tier items return to smaller museums around the world, where they might at least have a chance to be the star?
The second thing I had to do in London was a pilgrimage.
Most men—and a few women—probably grew up loving a team at some point, and with that love came a stadium tucked away in their hearts. Mine was in North London.
I can no longer remember exactly when or how I fell for Arsenal. I only know that during my college years, when I was most obsessed with football, I stayed with Arsenal through a long slump. It was a bit like being in love: the bitterness always outweighed the sweetness.
Back then I didn’t have much money, so I could only afford the cheapest away jersey. This time, before setting off, I made sure to bring it with me.
From Arsenal station—the only Tube station in London named after a football club—to Emirates Stadium is just a few hundred meters. There was no match that day, so the road was lined only with scattered fans visiting with their children. I wondered whether they felt the same way I did: excitement already impossible to suppress from the moment I was on the Tube, like a wanderer finally coming home after many years.
Too impatient to linger long in the museum, I hurried into the maze-like stadium: parking garage, locker room, trophy display, directors’ box—until the moment I pushed open the glass door and saw it. Wow.
How beautiful she was—more beautiful than she had looked on television every weekend over the past decade-plus, beautiful without the slightest flaw. This stretch of green held so much of my laughter, tears, and youthful memories.
And in that locker room sat so many of my heroes. I went from being a little boy watching football to suddenly reaching an age where the players are now younger than I am, and every match feels as if I’m watching with the gentle gaze of an elder. These past two years, the young guys have been flying. Remember that No. 41—he’s my favorite player now.
One of the locker room staff saw my jersey and got excited. He said the year of that kit was exactly the first year his father took him to a match. So much time had passed.
Walking three laps around Emirates Stadium, like Muslims circling the Kaaba, was my ritual. Highbury and Emirates are, roughly speaking, my Mecca and Medina.
Thank you to the boss for leaving behind a stadium like this and a legend like that.
And thank you to the Iceman for leaving behind moments of pure elegance.
On the outer wall of one stand at Emirates Stadium is a mural of the old Highbury ground—a passing of the torch between two eras.
And a few hundred meters away, although the old stadium has been turned into apartments, that exterior wall was preserved, watching over its successor and waiting for the first championship trophy in twenty years.
From Highbury, I headed back into the city and met a friend at a little pub in front of Tate. It was packed, as if the whole city had squeezed itself onto the banks of the Thames. Everyone was greedily savoring a London summer evening.
We walked from Millennium Bridge toward St Paul’s Cathedral, and my friend said this was the London view she always brought people to see.
I don’t really remember what we talked about along the way. All that remains in my memory is the breeze drifting in from the Thames, carrying distant noise with it.
It was already late at night, though for Londoners the night was only just beginning.
As for me, after living through one beautiful dream of a day, I planned to head back to the hostel and keep dreaming.
Because the dreams you’ve dreamed will come true.
About the Author
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